Freshman Year Jams

Like any person will tell you, music deeply roots and intertwines itself with memories. For every added year of glory and gore new memory bytes find themselves booked and shelved into my walk's DNA (walk=life walk). I find that stumbling across the songs, versus seeking them out, I always face a sort of emotional confusion. It's very hard to remain in the state you were if it conflicts with the state you once were in when the song first signature-d itself along a crease in your brain.

There are three songs from my freshman year that have exactly this effect on me. Sure there were actually many more, but for the sake of not writing a book, I'm only going to address a few. 

Kanye- The Chainsmokers
High You Are Branchez Remix- What So Not 
All Night- Icona Pop

These are actually all from the same night, which isn't hard to imagine considering they're all party songs. I can't say that had these songs been presented to me in another context that they would have half their shine, or even made it into my music library that I do not even pay for (Spotify). But when I heard these dumb millennial hymns, I was surrounded by new friends I never planned on making, at a place I never planned on going to, having more fun than I ever could have expected. Sharing smiles and laughing at the lack of rhythm around us, I met eyes with various exchange students and upperclassmen mentors while clock hands and red solo cups swirled around us questioning our permanence. Nobody else mattered to us, and I think they knew it. We were both at the party and were the party at the same time, onlookers caught somewhere between embarrassed and envious as they carried on in their conversations around us. It's a very "college" image, but it was just a gaggle of us, maybe 7 or so, spinning and popping in front of a TV and speakers in what was maybe a 5x5 space while cheesy music videos played on the screen. The other guests trellised themselves against walls or sank into couch cushions. 

I remember doing a cliche jazz/swing pass with a kind French woman as the other dancing goons clapped around us and thinking to myself I hadn't been that content in a long time. 

Freshman year was very good to me. 

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